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Description





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Spiders are abundant and widely distributed, with 51,181 species of spiders in 132 families and 4,329 genera worldwide; according to their different lifestyles, they can be categorized into three types: hunting spiders, webbing spiders, and burrowing spiders.


The spider used in this project, Araneoidea, belongs to the order Arachnida, suborder Neospermata, is a kind of webbing spiders, which has seven kinds of silk glands in its abdomen and can spit out seven kinds of silk, and is often used as a model for the study of natural spider silk.

By comparing its mechanical properties with the physical properties of other substances, it is found that traction silk is the strongest of the known biological materials, and its strength, ductility, and toughness are better than that of silk, steel wire, nylon and other materials, which can be widely used in the manufacture of automobile tires, aviation suits and other applications.



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However, the production of silk material of this spider is very small, which is difficult to meet the demand of industrialized production, so it is expected to find new genes to expand these properties of spider silk, to achieve a small amount of high-efficiency results, as well as to be able to utilize more different species of spider silk, through the addition of the corresponding functional proteins can be achieved the above properties. It has been shown that the expression of new genes in combination with MaSp2 can double the silk performance, and the Ma triple proteome results show that two new genes are present in the anterior and middle parts of the silk glands and in the traction silk, and that these proteins are present in a number of species of the genus Cynomorpha, but not in non-Cynomorpha, as determined by the Blastp comparison.






In this project

We hope to investigate how the two new genes promote self-assembly and fiber formation of spider proteins, and to understand the spinning mechanism of spider silk proteins by mapping out the spinning conditions in vitro in order to enhance the related biomaterials while providing them with more excellent physical properties



In this project

We optimized codons for full gene synthesis, then constructed a transformation strain, purified the expressed protein, extracted the spider silk, dissolved and dialyzed it, then added the expressed protein to make a mixture, and then obtained the "hybrid silk" by in vitro spinning technology to determine whether its properties were enhanced by the addition of the expressed protein

In the experiment, we chose the white-fronted spider of the family Araneae, which is easy to obtain, easy to keep and simple to operate. We took out the spider silk from its tail, dissolved it with lithium bromide and crushed the tissues and then replaced the protein solution with PBS to remove impurities, so as to achieve the purpose of dialysis and purification, and then we added the expression protein of the new gene into the mixing and incubation.



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Finally, the performance of the experimental silk will be measured by polarized light microscope, scanning electron microscope, tensile tester and other tools to determine the function of the new gene-expressed protein.

We expect that the spider silk obtained from the final project can be widely used in daily life with its superior performance, as a biosynthetic material that can enhance strength and can be used in construction, machinery, aviation and other fields, and it is more green and environmental friendly than other physical materials.